The Vaster Wilds

by Lauren Groff

But she knew that a fool could only exist where there was indulgence and freedom enough for laughter and so it was natural that in flight all of her other songs had dissolved.

Press on, girl, the snow said, in falling.

And you who had only ever known comfort and company, who had slept all your life beside other warm bodies, you who have sought out other humans even if you were a single moment alone, for solitude was unbearable to you, are you so ready to be utterly without friend in these echoing wastes?

For, inches beyond this face of hers and in the profoundest sufferings of her body, the world went on in its grand and renewing and wholly indifferent beauty.

The spring unleashing its winter-coiled power, the joy of living.

The only thing meant to be alone is the good sun that shines its endlessly giving heat and light, that one great creator who alone can burn against the nothingness.

As is the truth of all the people who have walked and will walk upon the earth, she returned at last to all she had been before life.